The ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ crew were busy goofing off on ‘Picard’ set

Star Trek: The Next Generation fans were popping champagne corks last week when it was confirmed that almost the entire cast would reunite for the third season of Star Trek: Picard.

The show has already featured Jonathan Frakes’ Riker, Marina Sirtis’ Troy, Brent Spiner’s Data, and Whoopi Goldberg’s Guinan, but season three is all set to reintroduce us to LeVar Burton’s Geordi La Forge, Gates McFadden’s Beverly Crusher, as well as finally serve the long-awaited reappearance of Michael Dorn as Worf.

This makes Picard a true successor to The Next Generation and the first time the core cast has appeared together since 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis. During his appearance at Deadline’s Television Contenders panel, Stewart even revealed that the ensemble had so much fun together it was difficult for the directors to keep them in line.

“I’m with Gates [McFadden] and Marina [Sirtis] and Jonathan [Frakes] and Brent [Spiner] and LeVar [Burton] and Michael [Dorn], and those days have been wonderful. “I think it’s hard for the directors because we fool about so much! And it was always like that – I mean, you’ve probably heard that famous thing that I said during our first season when somebody said, ‘Patrick, we’ve got to have some fun,’ because I was complaining about the disruptions and the noise, and I said ‘We are not here to have fun!’”

Seasons two and three of Picard have been filmed back to back, with production on the second season ending in September 2021 and the third in early March 2022. This means the reunion season will likely premiere roughly a year from now in early 2023.

Before then we still have four episodes of season two to come. So far we’ve seen a very interesting parallel universe in which the utopian Federation is replaced by the fascistic ‘Confederation of Earth,’ with Picard as its greatest military commander. It’s a fun storyline that casts Picard in a new light and gives Stewart a lot of room to flex his dramatic muscles.

New episodes of Star Trek: Picard air weekly on Paramount Plus, with the next episode arriving on April 14.